The construction of a US$2-billion-plus thermo power plant began in the northern province of Quang Ninh Friday.The project is 100-percent foreign-invested.

With two operators of 560-MW output each, Mong Duong 2 plant's first operator is expected to be online by 2015.

After 25 years, the plant will be transferred to Vietnam from its foreign investors: the US-owned AES Corporation, the South Korean-owned Posco Power, and the Chinese-owned China Investment Corporation.

In other news the Japanese-owned Kawasaki Geological Engineering Company Ltd. started seismic surveys on the areas where Vietnam's second nuclear power plant is to be built in the central province of Ninh Thuan on Friday.

The survey was expected to cover an area within a 40-kilometer radius of the plant's location, including the sea. It will be conducted under the protection of Ninh Thuan border guards, and will finish next month.

Last month Vietnam's technology ministry also ordered a seismic study at the proposed site of the country's first nuclear power plant, also in Ninh Thuan, after scientists warned about the tsunami and earthquake risks of the project's slated location.

Vietnam plans to open its first nuclear power plant in 2020 in cooperation with Russia, and two others with Japan. Eight nuclear plants are slated to be in operation here by 2031.